In the olden days (2001), it was enough for a gang of lovable street-racers deal with smaller things: Stolen consumer electronics, for example, or trying to decide if your new BFF was actually an undercover cop (The Fast and the Furious). Or, for example, impressing a girl you liked because you could Tokyo drift the best (The Fast and Furious: Tokyo Drift).

Simpler times.

Since then, our beloved Fast Fam has faced increasingly greater challenges: the wholesale destruction of Rio de Janeiro (Fast Five). Escaping a murderous tank, flying over a high-rise freeway, and driving through an exploding cargo plane (Fast & Furious 6). Skydiving cars from an airplane, jumping cars between three skyscrapers, and vehicular warfare in the streets of Los Angeles that involved a drone, a mercenary helicopter, and a sword fight (Furious 7). A fleet of homicidal robot cars, giant wrecking balls, a baby, and a MOTHERFUCKING RUSSIAN SUBMARINE (Fate of the Furious).

The trend is clear. Given this state of constant escalation, where else can the family go but space?

The trend is clear. Given this state of constant escalation, where else can the family go but space?

Back in time? Perhaps. Forward in time? Also perhaps. But the adventures of the Fast Fam have always taken place, at least ostensibly, in the "real" world. Time travel is, for now, but a dream; taking cars to the air—and beyond—is within our grasp.

Tej could for sure make a flying car.

"More than a dozen start-ups backed by deep-pocketed industry figures... are taking on the dream of the flying car," writes John Markoff in the New York Times piece "No Longer a Dream: Silicon Valley Takes On the Flying Car." "The approaches by the different companies vary and the realization of their competing visions seems far in the future, but they have one thing in common: a belief that one day regular people should be able to fly their own vehicles around town."

Regular people: the Fast Fam. Around town: Los Angeles. And beyond.

Tej could for sure make a starship.

“Planetary exploration satisfies our inclination for great enterprises and wanderings and quests that has been with us since our days as hunters and gatherers on the East African savannahs a million years ago,” wrote Carl Sagan in Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space. “By chance—it is possible, I say, to imagine many skeins of historical causality in which this would not have transpired—in our age we are able to begin again.”

To tether Dom, Letty, Hobbs, Roman, Tej, et al. to Earth is to deny destiny—not only the destiny of our Fast Fam, but the destiny of our entire human family.

COUNTERPOINT: NO, THE FAST & FURIOUS FAMILY SHOULD ABSOLUTELY NOT GO TO OUTER SPACEby Ciara Dolan

I'm admittedly new to the Fast & Furious series, but there's one thing I know for sure about the family: They relish life's simple pleasures. BBQ. Loyalty. Coronas. The serenity of the open road. The vroom vroom of a fast car. And now, the toothless grin of a newborn named Brian.

Outer space is dangerous. There's junk flying around everywhere! It's no place for an infant with a soft spot on his melon. I know what you're thinking—Dom will just leave baby Brian at home on Earth with Mia and adult Brian (RIP Paul Walker), right? WRONG. Do you really think Dom is going to risk orphaning his young son?

I know, I know. He could be swayed by the mysterious allure of flying cars. But let me assure you—if he takes one look at this very convincing HowStuffWorks article about the "Top 5 Reasons You Don't Want a Flying Car," Dom won't dare to venture beyond the mesosphere.

Fellow reliable source Elon Musk also thinks flying cars are a bad idea. I don't like the guy, but I'm pretty sure Dom would. Plus, I agree with him on this one point: "If somebody doesn’t maintain their flying car, it could drop a hubcap and guillotine you." We already have to worry about this with midlife crisis dads and their toy drones! I, for one, maintain my firm anti-guillotine stance.

Another notable flying car detractor? John Leonard, the mechanical engineer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory quoted in the New York Times article Erik mentioned earlier ("No Longer a Dream: Silicon Valley Takes On the Flying Car"). But Erik didn't tell you what John thinks. “Silicon Valley is full of very smart people, but they don’t always get the laws of physics,” he said. “Gravity is a formidable adversary.” I know gravity isn't a thing in outer space, but to get there you've gotta ascend through 62 miles of Earth's atmosphere. So let's repeat that for the Eriks in the back:

"Gravity is a formidable adversary."

Despite my own reservations with flying cars and space (hard nope to both), my opinions are irrelevant—based on the logic of the Fast & Furious franchise, Dom and his crew will never, ever go to outer space. Family is what tethers Dom to the terrestrial. And we all know the rest of the Fast Fam would never attempt a cosmic voyage without his leadership. Cipher was right: Dom's ironclad loyalty will ultimately limit him and the scope of his destiny.

But on the bright side, there are plenty of cool roads left on Earth for the Fast Fam to, uh, drive on, like Norway's Atlantic Ocean Road:

Just think of all the vrooms they could do here!KOTANGENS / GETTY IMAGES